Fictional Figures, Real Life Lessons

My Lovelies 😘❤️,

Isabelle here! Welcome back for another post and week together here at PawzandProse.blog. Before we begin this week’s discussion, Athena and I want to remind you to subscribe to our blog on our website, if you haven’t already done so. Each subscription continues pushing this platform forward and allows us to keep sharing our daily adventures with you. With that said, welcome to all of you, my loves, and let’s get on with the matter at hand!

This week, I’d like for us to discuss how we can learn life lessons from the most unexpected of places, including TV & movies! Lately, I’ve been trying to catch up on movies and shows that I missed out on growing up (i.e., F.R.I.E.N.D.S gasp I know gasp, Sons of Anarchy, and my latest guilty pleasure, Once Upon a Time). In the essence of time, I’d like to discuss just two fictional characters that have very much inspired a lot of what you read on this platform and a lot of what I have made a very important part of my morals and values, in short, two characters that have made the Isabelle you read before you today: Maleficent & The Evil Queen/Regina.

As you all know, being yourself and being kind are two things that I STRONGLY stick behind. They are two fundamental building blocks that I base my life around and that I believe make humanity stronger and a better place to be. It is also something that I believe that has been absent through history’s greatest moments of tension and conflict. Ok, Ok, I see the wheels turning, the eye-rolling, and the confusion in all of you reading this and I know you’re saying to yourself “there she goes again, making ABSOLUTELY no sense and going off on her random tangents and circles. Isabelle, explain yourself… now… How in the HECK do Maleficent & The Evil Queen fit into what we're discussing here?” Patience my loves… patience. Have I ever left you guys without a proper explanation? Why would today be any different? LOL 😝.

So, for those hyper-observant lovelies reading this, you may have already noticed that the two characters I mentioned here are two of Disney’s biggest and most well-known villains. Quick sidenote here, as always, what I have noticed lately from Disney and their “remakes” is that they are diving into the fairy tales and stories that we all grew up with and are going deeper into these characters’ backstories. If you haven’t watched Maleficent, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, or Once Upon a Time, this is your warning that there will be some spoilers in the following part of this post. If you wish, you may stop reading at this point and we’ll see you for the next post. Now, if you’re still here with us, my loves, what I’m trying to say is that these backstories give us important insight as to why the original stories went the way they did. These backstories also clarify for us why these characters are who they are because, as they say, “no one is born hating” and “no one is born evil”. Now, with Maleficent, we saw that, in her younger years she was a young fairy like all the others: kind, gentle, carefree, and trusting. It wasn’t until she grew older and was betrayed and hurt by the one she believed was her “true” love (in his blind search for power) that her desire for revenge was sparked and she became the Dark Fae we all know from the original story. Remember, the one that placed the sleeping curse on Aurora (AKA: Sleeping Beauty). Yeah, that one! Now, the Evil Queen/Regina. In the original Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, we see that the Evil Queen was “evil” because of jealousy. She did not like the fact that everyone, especially her enchanted mirror, believed Snow White to be more beautiful than she was. In Once Upon a Time, we also find that the Evil Queen starts off evil; however, they make this beloved character much more complex and relatable. In this TV series, we see that the Evil Queen became evil because she too was betrayed. She was betrayed by young Snow White when Snow shared her secret (*Ahem* her relationship with David Ahem) with her mother Cora. Snow shared this information after Regina had requested that she keep it to herself; however, young Snow shared the confidential information without imagining the catastrophic consequences that would follow (i.e., Regina’s mother killing her one true love, David). This betrayal was where the Evil Queen’s desire for revenge began.

With these two characters, I started reflecting on a very important fact of life which is that every scar and that every person walking this planet has a backstory. What do I mean by this? I mean that there is so much more to us humans than meets the eye. We are complex creatures with so many layers, many of which we don’t show but which others seem hell-bent on claiming to “know”. Many times, we only see someone’s character or someone’s behavior, but we never stop to reflect on what could have possibly happened in that person’s life that made them the way they are. In these fictional characters, we see that their hot heads/hot tempers resulted from severe betrayals (which could certainly be the case for many in real life as well), but there could also be another plethora of reasons for the reactions we see on the outside. If I had believed in kindness and being non-judgmental with others before watching these movies and these shows, I guarantee that after seeing these characters and experiencing their journeys, no matter how fictional they are, these characteristics have become even more ingrained in my heart.

There are two points which I would like to leave you with after this discussion/post, my Loves. The first is to remind us that life lessons can be learned in the most unexpected of places (*Ahem* hello, you have in front of you a 34-year-old here confirming life lessons with Disney characters! LOL… and good lesson(s) at that!) Two, to remind us, as always, to be KIND. Kindness makes the world go around and kindness is what the world is lacking in so many ways. Kindness is also something that should not be negotiable. It is by applying these seemingly “fictional” lessons that we get from the TV and film that we can truly “walk a mile in someone else’s shoes” and be empathetic.

Until the next one my Loves,

XOXO Isabelle 😘❤️ XOXO